


Just The Way You Are

by cloversprite



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Beca is trans obviously those are the facts, Bechloe end, F/F, Parent Death, Parent-Child Relationship, Pining, Short & Sweet, Trans Character, bechloe - Freeform, trans Beca
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-11 14:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11150112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloversprite/pseuds/cloversprite
Summary: Being Trans at University is complicated. Beca tries to ease her way through only to be roped into joining an all women's singing group. Will they accept her when they find out she is trans? Jesse and Chloe help her through her first year at Barden and Beca tries not to fall in Love with her best friend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Fic please be gentle. No copyright infringement intended.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beca flies in to Georgia and gets settled at Bardon Before meeting her new roommate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rewrite of my first Fic where Beca is a trans woman and has a surprise roommate. Mostly follows PP1 plot.

Chapter 1  
The noise of the crowd and the whir of the air conditioning units and the jets just overhead was all a little overwhelming. Beca Mitchell hated to fly. The airport was seriously stressful, not to mention anything of airport security screening. The traipsing through miles of institutional hallways with heavy luggage, the misgendering and scrutiny and questioning, The TSA agents checking IDs, invasive X ray screening, and pat-downs. The flight to Atlanta had been uneventful. She had alternated mixing with her headphones in and feigning sleep to get past the claustrophobic feeling of being surrounded by 100 strangers in close quarters and to evade stares from her seat-mates, whether real or imagined. She’d developed a tough skin and a resilient attitude, but it was easy to get pulled in to the overwhelming casual bigotry of being in public if she wasn’t quick to guard against it at every turn.  
She was apprehensive about starting school, especially in the southern united states. She would much rather have been on her way out of the terminal at LAX ready to bust her ass getting coffee and shuffling paperwork in a recording studio. She was ready to work her way up into the glamor of LA nightlife and Hollywood notoriety, not spend four years outside of Atlanta cracking books and taking tests. She just wanted to make music. She wasn’t sure how she would get through college. Barden University was not what she had hoped for her future. It was a speed bump, at most, she hoped.  
She had done everything she could to prepare. She had researched college housing rules and selected the gender inclusive housing option available so that she wouldn’t have to room in the men’s dorm. She had researched her rights as a student and changed her name with records. She had located the single stall bathrooms on the campus maps, and researched Georgia transgender rights to know what she was up against. She was not excited. But she was a little less afraid and uncertain this way.  
The taxi driver picked her up from the airport and loaded her luggage into the trunk. She felt naked without her computer and mixing equipment by her side or on her lap. The driver tried to make small talk but she didn’t invest much into it. Yes, this as her first year at college. No, She was just doing the to make her family happy. No, she was not excited. No, she did not have a major picked out. After a few questions, she put her headphones back in and made her best “don’t talk to me glare” towards the driver. She wasn’t trying to be rude, she just wasn’t interested in delving further into the small talk. She wanted to get today over with.  
She wasn’t quite homesick for Portland yet. When her dad had taken the job at Barden University a few months ago, he had left 18 year old Beca behind in Portland, Oregon. She had lived with her grandmother in the months before her move to Georgia after her Dad left to establish himself in the city and prepare for classes. She was a lot closer to her grandma since her Mom’s death a year before, but found it awkward living in her house on the east side of the city without her mom there to make it seem like the home she remembered when her mom was alive. After the divorce Beca’s mom Carol had moved back into her own mother’s house just across town. Carol was close with her mother, and they lived well together until died tragically in a car accident near the time of Beca’s 17th birthday.  
****

When Beca arrived on campus she quickly got out to get her luggage out of the back and paid the driver. As she was unloading she glanced up to see a goofy stranger serenading her from the back of his parents SUV. His eye contact unnerved her. She was never sure whether people were clocking her as trans and silently judging. She was never sure when the silent judgement might turn into violence or harassment. She uncomfortably rolled her eyes, but he just kept singing his air guitar solo as the car pulled forward, jostling him in his seat.  
After getting directions for the RA in charge of her orientation group, whose sunshiny voice she found irritating and mostly tuned out, she walked towards Baker Hall and through the throngs of freshmen and parents also finding their way for the first time. She eyed a group of older frat-looking guys dismissively as she watched them hold up number scores for female students and leer unsettlingly as they walked past with their parents and stuffed animals, she both tried to hear and not-hear the comments they made about her, if any as she walked past. She wasn’t exactly easy to miss. Although she was small and a little short she was one of few students dressed all in dark colors. Black eye-shadow rimmed her eyes, small gauges and an industrial piercing framed her face, and lacy black jewelry adorned her wrists. The tattoo’s that were visible didn’t help either. She didn’t hear any of their comments as she tracked away from the line of rowdy boys and made her way into the doors of Baker Hall to set up her room and meet her new roommate.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When she got to room 115 the door was ajar and she could hear some humming inside as someone shuffled around. Taped to the door was a picture of the school mascot like all the other doors and some yellow paper with their names and pronouns on it.

“Jesse Swanson (he/him/his)” she read above her own name and gender pronouns. She took a deep breath and entered. 

“Hey I know you!” 

Beca was startled. “No you don’t” she murmured. This wasn’t exactly the impression she was hoping for, but her social skills weren’t exactly her strong suit. 

“Yes I do, I sang to you. I remember because you were in a taxi. Is your dad a taxi driver?”

“No.” She stated. “I’m Beca, by the way. And you’re Jesse?” She gestured towards the door where their names were printed. 

“That’s me!” he said cheerfully and went back to putting up a vintage looking Jaws poster over his bed.

Beca immediately started setting up her mixing equipment. She was eager to get a break from the awkward social interaction and more eager to finish the mix she had started on the plane. It’s not that she was anti-social, she was just guarded and nervous. She wondered about Jesse. What was his story, what were his interests, why did he choose the gender inclusive dorms? What would he think about her? She wasn’t necessarily prejudice against men or anything, she liked them fine and got on with them okay, but she was nervous. There was all the toxic masculinity and potential homophobia and transmisogyny that could turn violent and was stereotypically more prominent in men. But she was in the gender inclusive dorm. They did have to take an anti-bias and anti-harassment training later in the week, so that was something. She decided to feel out Jesse and try and see where his beliefs lay before saying anything about being trans. Honestly being trans was a big part of her life. She was still a woman first and foremost, but being trans had shaped her identity since she found out what that meant when she was 10 or so. It was a way to relate to others. A better shot at belonging. A community of shared understanding where she could be every part of herself. She treasured the online company of other trans women that she cultivated and she was a part of the youth drop-in center back home in Portland, but since she was moving away she didn’t get as attached as some of the other teens. . She didn’t have many close friends, but many acquaintances she considered her friends, until now, moving to Georgia, she left it all behind. The internet and her mixing was all she had. 

“Campus police! Hide your wine coolers!” Her dad said pushing into the room.

The knock at the door startled her, and she nearly hit her head against the dorm desk plugging in her mixing equipment. Before she or Jesse could get to it, the door opened and her father walked in. 

“Just your dad making a funny” he said. 

“Chris Rock everybody” replied Beca under her breath. 

It wasn’t that she disliked her dad really, they just weren’t close. The was certainly upset at him for making her come to Georgia, come to college, and for divorcing her mom. I guess truthfully she did have a choice. She could have stayed in Portland or gone to LA right after graduation, but she didn’t want to disappoint some of the only family she had left. Her dad and grandma wanted her to go to college, and if she was going to go, she might as well go to Barden where it was free with her dad’s faculty position. Might as well not pay for something that she didn’t want and was unnecessary anyways. 

“And you must be Beca’s roommate! I’m Dr. Mitchell, Beca’s dad. I teach comparative literature here.”

”Ah so not a taxi driver after all” Jesse balked a little at the abrupt intrusion and forward personality of Dr. Mitchell, but quickly found a stride and engaged Jesse in a bit of conversation about the joys of Barden and his major (“Cinema studies with a music composition minor” he was “fairly decided already”) Before he turned his attention back to Beca. 

“When did you get here? How did you get here?” he started. 

“I took a cab. Didn’t want to inconvenience you and Sheila” she said sarcastically. 

The fact that her dad was married again made her bristle. It was a betrayal to her mother. How could he just move on and stop trying? Sheila was nice enough she supposed. Young. Too young for her dad she thought, and a bit stuffy and formal like plastic covering the furniture. Not that she had ever been in her dad’s new house to see if they in fact had plastic on the furniture. She didn’t suppose they probably did. 

“How is the step-monster?” Beca said with a sarcastic role of the eyes

“Oh she’s fine, thank you for asking. She’s actually at a conference in Vegas this week for w-”

“Oh I don’t actually care, I just wanted to say “Step-monster”” Beca cut him off. 

“Anyways. I’m just glad you got here Beck. Have you seen the quad? In the springtime all the students study on the grass”

“I don’t want to study on the grass, dad. I should be working in LA at a record label so I can start paying my dues”

“Oh come off it Beca. DJing is a hobby. Not a profession. Unless your Rick Dees or someone awesome!”

Beca huffed. Her dad never did really take an interest in her music or take it seriously. It was just something she tinkered with instead of spending time doing more important things. She was tired of her dad trying to push “the classics” and the importance of a liberal arts education. Some people just weren’t cut out for this. She thrived on technology. Computers, music and mixing. She didn’t need to learn Shakespere to know what she was meant to do. She already knew. Music was everything.

“I want to make-- I want to produce music dad” Beca was beyond irritated. Her dad had always been quietly supportive of her. Never mean or rude. He worked to understand Beca’s gender. And after 8 years he usually got it right. But this was something he wasn’t willing to budge on. He would always value the traditional achievements of a college education and put Beca’s real interests off as something trivial. 

“But you’re going to get a college education first. For free I might add.” At that Beca did not look impressed. She rolled her eyes and huffed as she finished making her bed.

“I’ll tell you what. Join any club on campus, get involved. Try a little. If after a year here you still want to go off to LA and be P. Diddy, I will help you move to LA” Dr. Mitchell added 

“I got an internship at the campus radio station” Beca piped up

“Oh beca. That place? It’s dark and dirty and has what? 3 weirdo’s who work there. Something else. Please.”

“Well 4 now” she said gesturing to herself

“Five!” piped in Jesse “I’m working there too”

“I really need to see it Beca. Join in!” Dr. Mitchell said in a sing-song as he walked out.

On one hand Beca supposed this was a good thing, Her dad offering to help and all. And on the other hand she not only had to deal with joining into another social activity when she just wanted to mix and leave. And Jesse was crashing her internship. She wasn’t sure what to make of that. She had just met him after all. Beca just hoped she and him got along or it was going to be a long year.


End file.
